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Alliance battlecruiser Reprisal
Reprisal (hull number CC-1701) was an extensively modified Luna-class battlecruiser in service with the Terran Alliance Star Fleet. She was conceptually very different from her sisters and any other contemporary Alliance ship, mounting an experimental armament of 31cm neutron beam cannons as opposed to the Alliance's ubiquitous lasers. Though successful, her armament was never adopted into other vessels and she became a one-off design. Design Reprisal’s design came largely about as a result of the Terran Alliance’s first contact with the extragalactic Alparan Empire, which utilized neutron beam cannon technology extensively in its warships as a method to fight the hemovoric Sanguine Accord. It was decided that one Luna-class battlecruiser could be modified to accept Alparan-type weaponry to judge its effectiveness; CC-1701, as one of the last Luna''s undergoing construction at that time, was selected to be accordingly equipped to handle the new artillery. Samples of Aetanii armour were also obtained from the Consortium to use shipboard as the Alliance investigated the material for potential usage as well. Armament ''Reprisal's artillery differed significantly from other Alliance starships - and most Milky Way starships in general - by being equipped with neutron beam cannons for a main armament and heavy secondary armament. The heavy cannons were recessed into the hull of the ship, limiting their training arcs, but a directional focusing lens at the mouth of the barrel allowed them to engage targets at at least 30 degrees from the muzzle; the lighter 15.5cm cannons were mounted in more conventional turrets to provide a greater arc of fire against small, agile targets. Overall, this made Reprisal's hullform significantly smoother than most of her Alliance counterparts; the technology worked by using directional gravity fields to directly accelerate neutron particle streams to near-lightspeed. The greater mass of the neutron, compared to an electron beam cannon of equal calibre, made the heavy guns roughly three to four times more effective at any range up to their maximum. The longest range shown for a neutron beam cannon was 1 light-minute (from the [[Alparan flagship Zähringen|Alparan battleship Zähringen]]), while the guns of the Reprisal could only range out to half that at 30 light-seconds. Beyond that range, the beam tended to lose coherence and unravel into a dispersed, harmless stream of neutrons carrying on into the void. Reprisal's main guns consisted of eighteen 31cm neutron beam cannons in their recessed, fixed mountings along the hull: as built, she had a typical Luna hullform, but that was modified to give her an altogether cleaner appearance- her "trump card" was a massive spinal 41cm neutron beam cannon installed in place of the typical 38cm boring laser. Later on, this would be modified into a wave cannon based on hypothesized Razorbird designs using Hawking radiation. The battlecruiser's secondary armament consisted of thirty-six 15.5cm neutron beam cannons in single turrets studded along the hull; these could recess into the hull when not in use as in Aetanii designs. 'Rapid response' dual-purpose mountings were made up of 10cm electron beam cannons, a particle accelerator-type weapon that was also in extensive use by the Alparans thanks to the massive range it could boast (nonetheless, only half of a typical neutron beam cannon's range). Close-in defenses were provided by Alliance-standard swarm torpedoes, Aegis laser networks, and 5cm blaster banks. History Commission Reprisal (CC-1701) commissioned into the Terran Alliance's Star Fleet on 20th October, 2519 as an experimental warship to test Alparan and Aetanii designs: Alparan weaponry, considered very effective by Alliance weapons experts, and Aetanii armour and hull design, which ever since the Aetanii resurgence in galactic politics had set the new standard for shipboard protection. Captain Artemis de Ruyter would take command of her upon leaving the Saturn naval yards and she would enroll into the 1st Fleet as part of the 4th Battlecruiser Squadron under Vice-Admiral Jack Fischer. With her gleaming white hull, reminiscent of an Aetanii battleship, and her impressive new armament, she made an instant impact on the galactic stage: however, this was quickly overshadowed by more pressing events. Early Service Reprisal spent the early part of her service life drilling with the 4th Battlecruiser Squadron, which was made up of the Luna-class battlecruisers Reprisal, Serapis, Assurance, and Majestic; she was quickly noted on exercises as being particularly adept at long-range gunnery duels given the power and accuracy of her armament. Though it was recommended that her type be investigated further, the prevailing preference towards photon weapons meant that lasers and torpedoes would always take precedence over Reprisal and her interesting, but ultimately unused, design. Third War in Heaven Service Upon the outbreak of war with the Sanguine Accord as part of the larger Third War in Heaven against the hemovoric Kazikli, Reprisal was attached to the Galactic Council's 5th Coalition Task Force, which ultimately fell under Admiral Matsunaga Ritsuko of the Consortium. As part of her overall command of the Stygian Well fleet, Reprisal would be involved in the pivotal battle which took place there as well as the subsequent Second Battle of the Acheron Caldera. Decommissioning Category:Starships Category:Individual Starships Category:Alliance Starships Category:Battlecruisers Category:Terran Alliance